~ Bosnia's Romeo and Juliet ~

No two people have more exemplified the tragedy of the
civil war in Bosnia, than 25-year-old sweethearts
Bosko Brkic and Admira Ismic. The only impediment
to their love was living in a country who's people are
divided solely on the basis of ethnic heritage. For
Bosko, a Serb, and Admira, a Muslim, the love they once
expressed only for each other was forced to become a secret.

The couple, who had been dating for seven years, since
high school, were both chemistry students at the University
of Sarajevo. Bosko remained in the city to be with Admira
despite his families flight from the blood shed. Finally,in the
spring of 1993, Admira choose to reward Bosko for staying
behind by fleeing Sarajevo with him to Serb territory.

They knew their escape would be a dangerous one. To get to
the Serb side they had to cross the Vrbanja bridge, the front
line between Bosnian Serb and Muslim Forces. While most who
wished to flee the city dared not risk the sniper fire, some had
successfully crossed over. On the day of their planned escape,
carrying two bags, Bosko and Admira approached the
government soldiers on the Bosnian side of "no mans land".
They asked the soldiers to let them try an escape,
and the police snipers assented.

The young lovers began running as fast as they could across
the bridge. They had almost reached the Serb side when snipers
opened fire. The machine gun fire came so rapidly that the couple
had no chance to seek cover. Bosko was killed instantly, his body
laying twisted on the ground. Mortally wounded, Admira crawled the
few feet to her lover and wrapped her arm around him before she died.

An ironic twist to the story of two peoples love that transcended
a countries war, both the Serbs and Muslims staked claims to
the bodies. As the two sides argued about who would have them,
Bosko's and Admira's bodies lay intertwined on the bridge.

"The world must know about this", said Bosko's mother, Radmila,
from the Serb side. "This can not last forever, the Muslims
and the Serbs.They can not fight forever."

Radmila gave permission to Admira's father to bury her sons body
on the Muslim side. She had but one stipulation. "I don't want
them separated", she said

graciously taken from Dini Von Mueffling's In Love and War

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina. 04 April, 1996.

(associated press)

Sarajevo's "Romeo and Juliet" were buried side by side, nearly
three years after the Muslim woman and Serb man died in a bloody
embrace trying to flee the Bosnian capital. Admira Ismic and Bosko
Brkic were shot down in May of 1993 as the 25-year-old lovers
attempted to escape at the height of the siege. Their death came to
symbolize the insanity of a war that imposed ethnic and religious
division on a mixed society. As family and friends of Admira wept, the
two coffins were lowered into the ground under a gray sky in Sarajevo's
Lion cemetery, where so many victims of the war are buried. Admira's
father, Zijah, arranged the exhumation of the bodies from an unattended
grave in a Serb military cemetery, and had them shipped back to
Sarajevo. For Zijah, the funeral was a tremendous relief. "I was
afraid throughout the war I would be killed before I could finish
this," he said. "They have come back to their flock".

Bosko's family did not attend the second burial because no one could
reach them. His mother,Radmila, had earlier agreed through Serb
contacts to burying the couple in Sarajevo. Her only, condition was
that they be laid to rest together. Zijah said he and his wife plan
to place a heart-shaped stone at the head of the grave in May ~~ the
anniversary of the couple's death. Sitting in his daughters room,
Ismic said the joint burial was a fitting end for the couple.
"Their death was a message".

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